Mounties, Bears find success at winter track state meet

Feb. 22—Pisgah and Tuscola High school athletes competed in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) 3A Indoor Track and Field Championships on Feb. 10 in Winston-Salem.

Numerous members from each school represented their schools in the state competition, with some notching top-10 finishes.

Mounties impress

Tuscola's track and field standout, Eva Rinker, once again proved why she earned a scholarship to West Virginia University.

Rinker finished third in the 1600-meter race, only 8.5 seconds behind first place. She ran a personal record of 5:19.22, shaving off one half-second.

This was her toughest event race, as she had to hold off the fourth and fifth-place runners in the last lap or two to capture third.

Rinker also had a top-10 finish in the 1000m, finishing in 3:19.85.

The relay teams performed well, too. The girls' 4x800 team of Luci Snyder Lowe, Gracie Rinker, Briley Jordan and Olivia Arnold finished 12th overall (4:27.18).

The other state-qualifying relay team, the girls 4x200m, made up of Briley Jordan, Hannah Downs, Skylar Ball and Gracie Rinker finished in 16th place with a time of 11:10.43.

"They all worked hard and hit their split times," said Tuscola head coach Joanne Rinker. "Hannah Downs had a really impressive split time of 1:05 in the 4x400. Everybody was impressed with how they finished."

Freshman Briley Jordan made a really impressive effort in the high jump.

She qualified in the Last Chance Meet on Feb. 4 to qualify for state competition with a jump of 4 feet, 10 inches.

She recreated the 4-10 jump at the state meet to earn 10th place.

"In the high jump, your place is based on your height jumped. You have three chances at each height," Joanne Rinker explained. "Briley jumped each height they were on in the first jump. She hit it the first time they moved it to 4-8. She hit it on the first try when they moved it to 4-10. She missed 5 feet, but it moved her up in the rankings because she hit 4-10 on the first try."

"They did amazing," Joanne Rinker said of her state qualifiers. "Everybody worked so hard. I had no expectations going into the season except to give the kids the opportunity to have a winter track season. So it blew my expectations away."

Pisgah performs

Pisgah sent a number of its own athletes to the state meet, highlighted by three returning state meet veterans.

"I'm super proud of every athlete, not only the ones who qualified for state but the ones who came every single day to practice," said Pisgah head coach McKinley Morris. "You've got to make the mark to make it to state. We're so excited that so many kids got to experience state for the first time. That's the end goal."

Two top-10 finishers highlighted the Bears' track and field performances: Sasha Ledford and Sam Morgan, who both qualified for state last season.

Against the state's top competition, Morgan threw 34 feet, nine inches in the girls' shot put for fifth place.

"Sam progressively got better every single meet," Morris said. "She threw not just inches more, but feet more."

Morris said that Morgan started seeing the coaching and her hard work come together and that she was getting better as the season progressed.

"She won almost every meet we went to," Morris said. "She worked hard this season, and her success has motivated her to work even harder because she wants to be the best."

Ledford, competing after an injury two weeks prior, pole vaulted 10 feet to a six-place finish.

"Sasha has shown so much growth," Morris said. "She has grown in the way she vaults but in also in the way that she can change poles. That is a big step forward. She also cheers and does competition cheer, so she has a plethora of opportunities to continue to vault higher but at the college level."

The girls' 4x200 relay team of Sierra Early, Ariel McElreath, Mattie Dorlan and Avery Ponder finished in a time of 1:54.12 to earn 12th place.

The girls also ran the 4x400 but were disqualified.

On the boys' side, Ashton Sutton jumped 37-11.5 in the triple jump to take 25th place, and Evan Byrd, who qualified for state last year, competed in the 500-meter dash and the 330m.

Byrd finished 11th in the 500m with a time of 1:09.20 and 21st in the 330m with a time of 37.90.

"I don't think I could say enough good things about Evan Byrd," Morris said. "He's a model athlete. There is not a single kid that works harder than him. He's always at practice, never late and goes above and beyond. I know that's why he's so successful."

Morris said Byrd is motivated to run track in college and stepped up as a leader this season.

"He did the tedious things that nobody wanted to do. He is one of the people who will be pivotal in the change to work ethic and dedication we're trying to bring to Pisgah track," Morris said.

The change Morris referred to is her and coach Danny Williamson's plan to motivate kids to buy into the idea that they have the ability and that their coaches will do everything they can to make sure they achieve their goals.

"The expectations with Pisgah track are high because we have the kids that can perform and do it," Morris said. "Coach Williamson and I asked the kids to do stuff they didn't think they could do. And we're going to hold them to those expectations. When they bought into it, the sky's the limit."